Ceramics, Seafaring, and Traces of an Early Commerce Route
On the coronary heart of the Dokos wreck lies its cargo: a rare assortment of ceramic vessels that gives a treasured glimpse into the home, financial, and inventive lifetime of Early Helladic Greece. With greater than 500 full or reconstructable pots and over 15,000 sherds, the location represents one of many largest closed teams of Early Helladic II pottery ever found.
The variety is putting. Amphorae, wide-mouthed jars, sauceboats, bowls, braziers, baking trays, and small ladle jars or “askoi” had been recovered from the seabed, many nonetheless clustered collectively as they’d have been packed aboard the vessel. Most had been utilitarian – meant for storing, cooking, and serving meals – however some, just like the elegantly curved sauceboats with lengthy spouts and offset handles, could have had ceremonial or elite home capabilities. Their stylistic affinities with ceramics from Askitario in Attica, Lerna within the Argolid, and a number of other Cycladic websites recommend shared manufacturing practices and the circulation of frequent vessel sorts throughout the Aegean.
However maybe most intriguing of all is the pottery’s technique of manufacture. These vessels weren’t made on a wheel, which had not but develop into frequent apply within the Aegean. As a substitute, they had been formed solely by hand – coiled, smoothed, and thoroughly fashioned, then usually burnished or coated with a slip earlier than firing. Ornament was minimal, if current in any respect. But their obvious simplicity masks a excessive diploma of technical management. The uniformity in form, proportion, and end suggests a degree of standardization troublesome to realize with out specialised coaching. This was not rustic village ware; it was precision-crafted, nearly actually in organized workshops, more than likely situated within the Argolid. These pots had been made not for family use alone, however for distribution on a regional scale.
The inclusion of millstones and lead ingots among the many cargo reinforces the interpretation of the vessel as a service provider ship, its wares certain for smaller settlements or coastal communities that lacked their very own ceramic industries. This was not a private haul, however a business payload – proof that, even earlier than the palatial economies of the second millennium BC, the Aegean was already a well-trafficked commerce hall.
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